I have this deep desire in me to lose weight. I see my parents and their weight struggles and I am on a pretty forward path to end up over weight and very unhealthy. I am 24 right now and have many years ahead of me. I have always said i dont want to live to be really old if my quality of life isnt great. I dont want to be confined to a bed or a wheel chair. That is just me. But as i look forward into the future my options are pretty black and white…
option 1 being i can work out now and be healthy and lead a healthy life for many years
option 2 i can continue to eat and indulge now and pay later. continue to gain weight which will in turn jack up my knees and other joints and then potentially be unable to enjoy life in the future.
it seems pretty black and white right? ya, to me too.
but to be honest, i am a quitter. I have good intentions to work out and go running but half way through i quit. I have no self drive when it comes to working out. and to be honest again, it really pisses me off. i look back throughout my life and i see this Lynse that has drive to get through some pretty hellish things.
I pushed through and survived the sexual and emotional abuse.
I pushed through and quit pot and cocaine.
I pushed through dealing with the abuse because i knew it would benefit me.
Now, none of those things were easy or fun. Let me tell you i hated every minute of it.
But when it comes to working out and getting healthy i cant push through and i always end up quitting.
Through my years in TwentyFourSeven during our insane workouts the leader would say several things to motivate us. The one thing that always stands out in my head is
“you can pay now or you can pay later.”
I can pay now by working out and pushing my body to run that extra mile or do that extra lunge or crunch. Or i can pay later by being unhealthy with a poor quality of life.
those are essentially my two options.
but every time i put on my exercise clothes and tie up my shoes there is that voice inside of me that says i will never finish the run. or i cant ever lose weight or get healthy. And i buy into it and quit.
I am a quitter.
I dont want to be a quitter. I dont want to be the person that looks back years from now and wishes that i would have just paid in my 20’s instead of paying in my 50’s.
As much as i would love a Jillian Michaels, (who by the way is so freaking kick ass) I dont think it would be good for me in the long run. Knowing me, after she left or i quit seeing the trainer i would quit. I would have not built equity up in myself to get out there and face my demons of quitting and would find another excuse to quit.
This is much more than a weight issue for me. This is a character thing. It is going to be a life long struggle that isn’t even associated to my physical health. It is a motivation issue. It is a self value issue. It is a confidence issue. A self starting issue.
And right now to combat this I think the only way i know how will be to put on my exercise clothes daily and lace up my running shoes daily and push myself. Do that last mile, that last lunge, that last crunch.
Not because I need to lose weight, but I need to show myself that I value me, that I deserve to be healthy, that most importantly i wont quit on myself.
What do you always end up quitting that you need to push through?
The other night Chad and i were watching Criminal Minds. In this episode a little girl was kidnapped and the FBI “experts” began to tell the parents that the person who took their child was viewing her as an object and not a little girl. This struck a very big chord with me.
Through out my life I have been objectified.
I was abused by several men growing up and because they viewed me as an object. I was no longer Lynse, my identity was taken away and i had become just another thing….a baseball card that is bought and sold…when you are done with it you maybe put it in the closet or throw it away.
There is not a lot of value in an object.
After years of being treated like an object i began to believe that i was an object. I was there for someone else’s pleasure. my dreams, aspirations and voice did not matter, because, you see, i was only an object.
I am no expert, but i feel like a lot of people i have talked to who were abused woke up one day and felt like “i have to find myself” or “reclaim who i am”.
As i was half watching Criminal Minds and half having an inner dialogue about the damage of being objectified i realized that it was probably the most damaging aspect, for me, of the abuse.
Once you are objectified over and over and over you begin to think you are an object and you follow suit of your abusers and remove your own value.
And the on going cycle begins…if you dont have any value in yourself then others wont value you.
today as i am 10 years past the most recent sexual abuse trauma i am still left picking up the pieces. I still am trying to learn to value myself. I am still trying to see that i have a voice and those that love me should value what i have to say. I am still learning that i am a valued person by those around me, and i deserve to be valued. I deserve to be a person and not an object.
This is why when we went to New Orleans and walked Bourbon Street messed with me. This is why a part of my heart aches for human trafficking victims. Not that i know the extent of the pain, loneliness and all other emotions that have to be tied up in there. But i know just a sliver. I know what it feels like to be devalued. To be told over and over by different people that you are worth no more than sex or the pleasure that you can provide to them.
each person deserves to be valued. valued by themselves and others.
this is something i am still learning…and will probably be learning for my entire life. Learning to first value myself and then those around me.
Do you have a hard time valuing yourself? What about others?
I was listening to NPR today at work and there was a story on a man in japan who performs divorce ceremonies. He thought it was weird we celebrated marriage but not divorce, so he has the couple, families and friends come to a ceremony.
If you want to read more about it here is an article I found about it.
I’m curious what you think about this…
I have a really bad addiction.
I hear the first step to overcoming an addiction is to admit it. So here goes nothing….
I am addicted to the snooze button on my alarm clock.
Sigh. It’s out there.
I set my phone for AT LEAST an hour early to feed my addiction but most times it’s around 2 hours that I snooze.
Several of you have said that you could compete with me on the “gold metal” of snoozing title I gave myself this morning on twitter.
So I was wondering, do you use the snooze button? What’s your record?
If you follow me on twitter you know that we watch CSI like it is our job. If we were getting paid to watch it we would be millionaires. We love it! Before we moved we had the first 3 seasons on DVD and would watch them over and over and over and over. We had seen each episode at least 5 times but we would still watch them.
We own up to season 4 now and are in the middle of season 6 via Netflix. Each night we go home after our days and watch a CSI. We have done it for 2 years now. Chad still laughs at me because one Saturday morning I woke up and we were discussing our day and I expressed that I just wanted to “watch our friends”, meaning Gil, Sarah, Catherine, Nick, Warrick. I was partly sarcastic but partly not.
But last night as we were watching Season 6 I was thinking about how this is “our thing.” It would be weird to watch CSI with someone else. It is what Chad and I do. I know, we are dorks, but it is one thing that we can agree upon always.
And those things are good.
What is “your thing?” with or without a spouse.
